UPDATE: The AP puts UNC #6 elevating Kentucky and Villanova to #4 and #5 respectively ahead of UNC. The top three are the same as the coaches' poll. ACC teams: Duke #9, Georgia Tech #22, Clemson #24.
The full poll can be found here.
I can hear the coaches now: "Try to fool us again with that winning a title and losing all the players bit eh? We're on to you Roy Williams!"
UNC also collected a first place vote from someone which was a bit surprising. Overall this poll is more meaningless than most since every team save Kansas that is sorting out some types of major weaknesses/questions. Kansas returned the most and added a five star freshman in Xavier Henry so putting them #1 is an easy task. Michigan St. returned the core of a runner-up team so slotting them #2 likewise was an easy call. I was surprised to see Kentucky at #5 which means one of two things: The coaches are not as sold on the Wildcats as say, Gary Parrish or Jeff Goodman who gush incessantly about UK. Or the coaches think John Wall will ultimately end up in Europe after being declare ineligible. I have no idea when the voting deadline was so the second may not enter into the equation considering Wall's situation did not become public until late last week.
At present UNC's schedule includes games versus:
#2. Michigan St.
#3. Texas
#5. Kentucky
#8. Duke(twice)
#12. Cal(or #25 Syracuse)
#17. Ohio St(probable)
#20. Georgia Tech(twice)
#24. Clemson
Granted none of these teams will likely be in the slot they are now but if all of them perform close to the same level as the poll predicts, UNC will easily face one of the toughest schedules in the country.
Where the rest of the ACC is concerned. Duke is at #8 which is probably about right for them. I am putting the over/under on the number of games it takes Georgia Tech to blow that #20 ranking at five. I would take the under. Clemson is at #24 and looks to have their standard weak out of conference schedule in place unless you consider home games versus Texas A&M, Illinois and SCAR anything to worry about. Actually SCAR could be a challenge and Illinois is a well coached team. At any rate, Clemson will come out of the gate with a 12-0 or 11-1 mark good enough for a near top ten ranking before playing Duke-BC-UNC in succession. We know how it goes from there.